Reuters, via Daily Beast:
Global terror attacks increased by 35 percent and fatalities from the attacks climbed 81 percent in 2014, according to the U.S. State Department’s annual report on terror. The report also details an unprecedented flow of would-be ISIS fighters to Syria. Al Qaeda “appeared to lose momentum as the self-styled leader of a global movement in the face of ISIL’s rapid expansion and proclamation of a caliphate,” the report said. In 2014, there were 13,463 terrorist attacks resulting in more than 32,000 deaths; more than 9,400 people were kidnapped or taken hostage, three times the number in the previous year.